e Theban and the Argonautic
legends, and of the stories of Bellerophon (Bacch. 810), Pentheus
(Merc. 467), Procne and Philomela (Rud. 604). Sappho and Phaon (Mil.
1247).

73. "As to these Greeks," he says to his son Marcus, "I shall tell at
the proper place, what I came to learn regarding them at Athens; and
shall show that it is useful to look into their writings, but not to
study them thoroughly. They are an utterly corrupt and ungovernable
race--believe me, this is true as an oracle; if that people bring
hither its culture, it will ruin everything, and most especially if
it send hither its physicians. They have conspired to despatch all
barbarians by their physicking, but they get themselves paid for it,
that people may trust them and that they may the more easily bring us
to ruin. They call us also barbarians, and indeed revile us by the
still more vulgar name of Opicans. I interdict thee, therefore, from
all dealings with the practitioners of the healing art."

Cato in his zeal was not aware that the name of Opicans, which had in
Latin an obnoxious meaning, was in Greek quite unobjectionable, and
that the Greeks had in the most innocent way come to designate the
Italians by that term (I. X. Time of the Greek Immigration).

74. II. IX. Censure of Art

75. III. II. War between the Romans and Carthaginians and Syracusans

76. Plautius belongs to this or to the beginning of the following
period, for the inscription on his pictures (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 10,
115), being hexametrical, cannot well be older than Ennius, and the
bestowal of the citizenship of Ardea must have taken place before the
Social War, through which Ardea lost its independence.

End of Book III

* * * * *

THE HISTORY OF ROME: BOOK IV

The Revolution

Preparer's Note

This work contains many literal citations of and references to words,
sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many languages, including
Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and Greek. This English
language Gutenberg edition, constrained within the scope of 7-bit
ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions:

1) Words and phrases regarded as "foreign imports", italicized in the
original text published in 1903; but which in the intervening century
have become "naturalized" into English; words such as "de jure",
"en masse", etc. are not given any special typographic distinction.

2) Except for Greek,